Working Paper #537
Redefining Corporate Real Estate
Julie E. Benezet · Maureen A. Welch
Global competition, technological advances, and warp speed are driving companies to become extremely cost conscious and, at the same time, to pursue new sources of revenue. Against this backdrop, corporate real estate (CRE) professionals are finding that to be successful, they must shift roles from being service providers to their companies to managing corporate real estate as an asset. In this new role, they manage costs and maximize value throughout the life cycle much as their traditional real estate peers do. While this trend is to date far from universal, the organizations that have adopted this approach have found a shift from service to asset management requires a different organizational model and a different skill and mindset. In effect, CRE staffs are changing their business model from being a non-core business to being a core business within a broader corporate enterprise.